10:54 am admin

Depending on the reason WHY your email is being blocked, there are several things you can do to resolve the issue.

These include:

(For more information on each of these, read this article entitled: "Why Is My Email Blocked?"

Let's talk about resolving email blocks in that order.

1. A URL in the Email Message Is on A Blacklist

There are a number of different blacklists/block lists that various ISPs use to determine whether or not a domain is "good" or "bad" so to speak. If you're domain name - or URL - is on that list, you may well be looked at as a "spammer". You will need to find out WHY the domain is on a particular list and take corrective action to have it removed. Unfortunately, there is no guarantee as to if or when they will remove it from these lists. Truth be told, many of them are not reputable and affect a very tiny portion of your list. However, there are others that you'll want to pay attention to and take care to resolve any problems.

Regarding what to do in order to get your emails delivered in the interim, the simplest solution is to not send email with that URL in the copy.

This can present a challenge if you're using your own URL in an unsubscribe link, however. So, consider setting up your "email" on a domain that is not a primary domain for marketing. This way, nobody else is ever sending to that URL.

However, generally, these are going to be affiliate promotions or other promotional URLs. The short answer is to use a different link in your message (consider a tracking link or link shortener, but double check before sending to make sure those URLs are not on a blacklist)!

If it does happen to be your URL, then you may want to go and look to see which services have you blocked and see what it will take to get your own URL off that system.

2. The Message Has Been Blocked for Content-Related Issues

If it is a content block, you want to take a look at the content in your email to make sure there is not excessive punctuation, excessive capitalization, things designed to "trick" the spams filters.

Perhaps you have a few people that can give the email message a quick read before sending to make sure it's not too "promotional" or "spammy".

Run it through spam assassin just to see if anything triggers off the spam assassin. This isn't a 100% fail safe but it will give you a good indicator.

All you have to do is adjust the message for the next mailing. (And generally you're not going to send an identical message unless it's an autoresponder or confirmation type of email).

If you do need to resend the campaign, just fix your message and resend it.

3. The IP Address is Blocked

The third type of email block is an IP block.

If the IP address is blocked, generally no email sent to that provider is going to get through until you resolve the situation. In other words, if Hotmail has blocked you, you need to fix the issue before trying to send to hotmail customers again.

It is like a gatekeeper that says no email from this IP address is going to get through to our customers. We are protecting our customers.

So, you have to go to bat for yourself and basically state your case. There are a number of different ways that you can do this. Sometimes it's as simple as sending an email. Other times, you have to fill out a comprehensive form in order to do this.

You can do it yourself or you can use a service like EmailDelivered.com to handle your deliverability for you.

If you are going to do it yourself, you just need to make sure that you are paying attention to all of your email bounces and that you take the time to respond to these messages and take corrective action. You must get off of these lists as quickly as possible because, again, time is money and your list is money. You don't want to take three weeks to figure how to clean up Hotmail when your have promotions and marketing that needs to go out to your subscribers. You're literally throwing money down the drain.

Author: Heather Seitz

Attention Readers, Publishers, Editors, Bloggers, and Marketers: You may republish or syndicate this article without any charge. The only thing I ask is that you keep the newsletters, article, or blog post exactly as it was written and formatted, with no changes. You must also include full publication attribution and back links as indicated.

This information has been provided by http://www.EmailDelivered.com and written by Heather Seitz. To find out more on what to do if your email gets blocked, visit http://www.emaildelivered.com/email-delivered/what-to-do-if-your-email-gets-blocked/. Don’t forget to sign up for the EmailDelivered Pulse newsletter for articles, tips, and recommended resources related to email marketing and email deliverability.

 

April 15, 2011